Challenges of an interconnected world

In an individual's life, there are 3 phases of maturity, namely dependence, independence and interdependence. In the pre-internet world, more or less the larger groups of individuals also evolved into these phases of maturity in socio-cultural, political and economic contexts.

Post-internet, there is a much faster pace about the evolution of individuals, families, societies, nations, regional groupings with the result, the world is at once shrunk and complex. In all these evolutions, there is a key element: choice. Choices individuals make. Choices families, societies and various political and economic groups make. Choices that suit value systems and choices that undermine value systems.

The internet age has led to a kind of interconnectivity which overrides the phenomena of interdependence that was evolving in a slow pace through various socio economic groups.

This interconnectivity challenges the choices of yesterday as also the values of yesterday. This brings in a barrage of choices that defy almost all known contours of the games as they were played and controlled in the erstwhile divided interdependent world.

The unified interconnected world is at once simple, small and inclusive by way of connect and complex,too huge and exclusive by way of choices.

Today's interconnected world has made the individual life very complex. On the one hand, the interconnectedness is opening flood gate of opportunities to a knowledge world that knows no borders; on the other hand, the disconnect for the knowledge-individual from the traditional umblical chord with the smaller, compact groups like family, neighbourhood, native town or village community, sub national and national groupings is phenomenal.

The disconnect is, without doubt, perilous for social good to be realized within manageable turfs. Due to this disconnect, one does get lost out of the original purpose that was keeping the rhythm of day to day existence and harmony of life in tact.

As the mindspace of the individual keeps expanding tuned to an ever changing cyber environ, there is a huge threat of an information-fatigue and obfuscation of purpose of life.

A fanatic netizen is prone to hyper act and loose the valuable, stable and natural defences that lie in her own roots and in the course of getting interconnected to the virtual world, can very well be disconnected from the real world.

At a higher level of social plane, the challenges are palpable. Identities are getting destroyed. New identities are getting created, but there is no value system to cling on to, any more, as every value system is perceived to live shorter and shorter.

Each knowledge individual is evolving into multiple identities that keep questioning the fundamentals of the hitherto accepted social, political and economic philosophies -, there is now, as it were, a new equation in which all values are to die and no values matter that strong as these appeared to be in a world which was less interconnected but more interdependent.

While the destruction of old order is so much assured, there is no light that leads to a new path that can elevate the human life, in the perception of various sections of the society.

The ripples that keep circling in the net are far too many to ignore in the context of individuals and are at the same time far too weak to transform the humanity, as these often seek to.

How does, then, an individual who is part of the system take care of herself? What does a family do, if it is faced with an impact on the individual who is unable to settle and stabilize? At each level of impact, the questions that arise can keep echoing the dilemmas of the interconnected world, without an answer.

I think, at the end of the day, it is a journey for all social groupings - not individuals alone. The families that care for the individual need to connect to her through the same universe of choices, adapt to the same tools and techniques. This may perhaps help the interested entities find new ways of bonding with and sharing identity with the individual. This may help the disturbed entities find a foothold in a world to which the individual has been transported, apparently without his family or social roots.

Let us face certain realities without remorse: if I can chat, blog and community-group with my children, I am in better touch with them. I continue to be around in their mind space through the web space.

A parent, a teacher, a friend, a boss or an Institution is in better touch with respective target groups and constituencies to be engaged with through the medium and means of today's interconnected world.

The other day, I was insisting with my sister about installing Googletalk , who is, given a choice, inimical to these tools. The trouble is regardless of phone and mobile being around, the way i navigate into the channels of the day, I do not navigate through the tools of yesterday, I do not want to loose my people because of this and would rather persuade them to be part of the shift.

Suddenly through the last decade or so, there is an abundance in all our lives which we are not able to cope with. Today one needs to achieve more, but also has to read more, write more, see more and share more. Today's communications can be continuous with no measure of the conventional time limiting its continuity. Time has lost its definitions in the perennial flow of the world wide web.

Even if one counters the abundance theory with joblessness, look at what the jobless would have done a decade ago and what they do now. There is an abundance of activity for everyone.

Do families need to care at all for the lost individual, as usual? I would say they need to care even more, but they need to become part of the shrunk globe and be in the virtual neighbourhood of their wards. Being physically around is by no means being in touch with them. The world is interconnected. Families cannot afford not to be.